Team 10 was hopelessly outnumbered and they knew it. Problem was, their mission objective was currently unconscious on the ground beneath them and the only way to reach them was through these damn Sound ninja.

"Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, you need to do the Ino-Shika-Cho formation until I retrieve Naruto, Nabitora, and Sakura. Do you think you can keep them occupied until then?" Shikuke was the only one in the Hidden Leaf Village that had a chance to beat Shikamaru and his dad in shogi and he was about to pull out all of the stops in order to keep his teammates alive.

"Ready?"

"Hai!"

Instantly, mass chaos erupted as one Sound ninja after the other was dropped by the three young shinobi while the fourth was cutting his way through the enemy ninja like a knife through butter.

"You idiots better not be dead because if this was a waste of time." Shikuke balled his hand into a fist and fought forward to his objective.

"I don't want to lose you"

"Sakura!"

Naruto's voice kept ringing through the pinkette's head.

"Naruto, I swear to god if you don't let me sleep" she raised her head to finish her threat when her voice caught in her throat. Directly ahead of her, Naruto and Nabitora were in a crumpled mass on the floor, blood running freely out of multiple wounds.

"No, no, no!" Sakura quickly dropped down by her teammates and immediately started to apply first aid to them. she couldn't figure out why it was so hard to tie the bandages until she noticed how bad her hands were shaking.

"Damn it Sakura, just calm down!" She was furious at herself. Here she was passed out while her teammates risked their lives to protect her and now she couldn't even stop shaking enough to tie their bandages!

Suddenly a hand grabbed onto her own causing her to jump a little.

"Sakura you need to rest. Let me take it from here." She looked up to see Shikuke covered in blood and some fresh cuts.

"Shikuke your..."

"This mostly isn't my blood." She looked behind him to finally see the trail of bodies along with the fight raging in the distance.

"My team is handling the enemy shinobi until I get you guys out of..." An explosion cut him off as they seen three figure hurtling towards them.

"No..."

Sakura followed Shikuke's gaze to see Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji hit the ground in front of them. She barely had enough time to register that Shikuke and moved when she heard the enemy begin to cry out again. she took this time to patch up all the wounded and silently prayed that Shikuke was ok.

"What am I doing?!" Shikuke had only reacted when his teammates were injured. Now he was in the middle of 2 dozen enraged Sound ninja and was all alone to face them.

"I'm gonna kill you kid. Just like your friends!" Shikuke turned and instantly started on the attack. Needless to say the shinobi that had uttered that comment was the first to fall.

For several minutes Shikuke was a blur between enemies injuring or killing one after the other when he was violently yanked backwards by his shirt.

"Ok kid, you had your turn now it's mine." The behemoth brought down his fist onto Shikuke's stomach. He continued to rain down blows eventually causing Shikuke to spit up blood.

"Whats wrong? Finished already?" The brute was laughing manically as he kept on raining down the punishing blows. He was preparing to crush the kid's skull when a sharp pain in the back of his neck caused him to turn around which brought him face to face with the pink haired ninja from earlier.

"Now, now pinkie, you just wait your turn I'll be with you sh..." His sentence was cut off when the tag attached to the kunai in his neck exploded.

Sakura covered her head as pieces of the former ninja rained down on the area. She then turned towards to confront the remaining enemy shinobi in front of her.

"So" she thought to herself "Shikuke managed to bring down 6 more."

she glanced over at her fallen comrade. He was broken, battered, and barely holding onto life from the barrage of fists that he had just endured.

"Rest now Shikuke, I'll take it from here."

She readied her kunai as the Sound ninja started to attack from all sides. Sakura quickly grabbed Shikuke and retreated back to the rest of her comrades. As soon as she set him down, the Sound ninja began their brutal attack on her.

"Don't worry everyone. I'll protect you!" Sakura readied herself for the long fight ahead of her.

"Naruto. Are you going to let the one you love die to keep you safe?" The Kyubi glared down at the child in front of him.

"Of course not but..."

"But what? Oh yes that's right your too weak to protect her on your own!" The Kyubi roared at the child, sensing his weakness.

"That's not it at all you dumb fox! I just need help getting out of here." Naruto started chuckling as he nervously rubbed the back of his head.

"Dumb child..." The Kyubi turned around and laid down to rest.

Naruto opened his eyes to see Sakura on one knee, sporting dozens of gashes. As he struggled to get up he noticed the three dead shinobi in front of her. Just then the enemy came in for another attack that caused Naruto to step in front of Sakura, arms outstretched.

"Good job Sakura" Naruto growled as his sapphire blue eyes turned ruby red, "I'll take it from here."

AN: Here's another chapter of (Re)Setting the Stage I hope you enjoy. Like always, please leave a review and also tell me any suggestions for the story and please, feel free to PM me. Thak you all for the continued support.